How many of us love to move? Not me, and our move turned into quite an unwanted adventure! We did not stop all day, from 7AM until 11PM, finally collapsing onto our mattress, on the floor.

We started out taking the train south to Tempe, rented a van (ute), which they almost did not turn over to us because we had no proof of residency on us. We had to call the landlord to ask him to fax the lease to the dopes but he wasn’t in the office. Finally, dope #1 called the head office and they gave the okay. Learned the hard way to always bring the lease for any kind of transaction like this, just wished they had mentioned it in advance! We then drive across the street to Ikea, bought the bed frame, mattress, chairs and pillows. Loaded up the van w/ the goods and voila, it would not start or even turn over. A van filled with boxes and over-sized merchandise, after struggling to fit the mattress in – barely! We called the dopes across the street to drive over and give us a jump. Well, turns out, even though they are a gas/service station, they don’t own the van and gave us a phone # to call for help. Grrrr…

We called the company who actually owns the van and then they called a tow service to come out to help us. Just prayed we only needed a jump. Talk about red tape. We waited 30 min when they called to find our location finally arriving in 40 min., could have been worse. At least the guy was pleasant w/ a pretty good sense-of-humor, of eastern Indian descent. When he arrived he asked if we wanted to buy a car battery…. J

Something we had never seen before, but the engine was under the passenger seat, check it out.

We lucked out after the jump seemed to do the trick. Ute was up and running. Service guy then told us it will cost us $40… ;-) bah, ha, ha JJ

Finally on our way, next stop, Pyrmont to pick up all our stuff there. The van was so jam packed that we had to leave a small desk behind and hope to be able to go back for it another time. We were so afraid to shut the van off that we just kept it idling all day, even while loading and unloading. Made it to Lavender Bay, yay! Check out the beautiful view on the left of the pic below. Clark park and Wendy’s secret garden just beyond the fence.

Still not done. Unloaded here then onto Neutral Bay to Kerry & Justin’s to pick up all the kitchen appliances and heaters for a great deal! Drove back to Pyrmont to load up again but no one was there. :-( From there we drove to a mall in Glebe where they have a K-Mart and Coles grocery store to stock up while we had a vehicle. We took a chance and shut the van off while we shopped, fingers crossed. So relieved that it did start up, so Jim dropped me off at the apt so I could assemble the bed frame while he brought the van back to Tempe, then took the train back to Lavender Bay. Making progress w/ the bed frame until the last section. For some reason, the last two screws were too short and the openings were too wide! Always a risk when you buy Ikea, it should not have been any surprise. We did not mind sleeping on the floor as it did not take long to get to sleep that night… Beyond exhausted, even though it was Friday night and the building was really noisy… we just kept hearing Carole King and Aretha Franklin playing repeatedly, at least they had good taste in music. Ha, ha